She huffed. “Then ignore the torture and get the intel.”
“Easy for you to say.”
She leveled a glance at me. “Is it?”
“We don’t know anything about him,” I said, which came from nowhere. “His army file is a mess of redactions. I mean, who the fuck is this man and why is he anywhere near the Cave?”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“I’m not?—”
“Novak has bad guy energy, and it’s attractive in a he-would-kill-you way,” she added after a moment, tapping the stylus against the tablet again.
I stared at her. “You cannot be serious.” Because if she was right, then I had a bigger problem than Novak.
“I’m very serious.”
“He’s six feet of Terminator, built like a tank, covered in tattoos, and kills people for a living,” I said.
“Yes,” she said patiently. “That is what some people call bad-boy hot. And this is his form of flirting with you, aiming for your competency kink.”
“I don’t have a competency kink!” I lied. “Anyway, you know he’s not my type.” I wasn’t getting pulled into whatever this was.
She gave me a slow once-over. “I forgot, you like railing twinks.”
“Exactly,” I said, then it hit me what she said. How in hell did she know I liked my partner’s small and cute and easilyrailable? “Wait, what?
She nodded. “So, it’s because he’s a big guy you won’t return his affection.”
“I swear to god, Sonya?—”
“Your objection isn’t only the murder.”
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“Look,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose again. “All I’m saying is Novak’s behavior toward you is… statistically interesting.”
“‘Statistically’?”
“He doesn’t perform this way for anyone else. He stares at you, and it’s cute.”
“Only you could call a psychopath cute,” I said and turned back to my screen.
“Big and scary with a side order of cute,” she amended.
I huffed and put my headphones back on. This wasn’t the first time I’d had to sit through this shit—headphones on, jaw locked, forcing myself to drag usable intel out of someone’s last minutes—and it wasn’t just this time, it was every damn timeNovak sent a file. He narrated everything as if I needed to know how he extracted information. Was Sonya right? Was Novak showing me his work, hoping for what… approval?
Neil Langston had to be stopped, and I had zero moral conflict with that. But there was a difference between the how of what he did, and this darkness Novak recorded for me to hear. What he got for us was a string of usable intel—names, locations, accounts—enough to start dismantling another layer of the network hiding behind scripture and charity galas, enough to save kids who didn’t know they needed saving.
I’ll give him that.
But no one wants to hear about a murder in such detail. Apart from Novak, and possibly Jamie, oh, and Doc, and maybe Enzo and Rio… fuck, I was surrounded by murdering obsessive assholes.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “The bastard could’ve edited it. Sent a transcript. I didn’t need to hear every second of it.” I broke off, jaw tightening. I didn’t need the screams burned into my head. I didn’t need to hear the moment Langston realized no one was coming to save him. I’d seen some of the videos of the kids he’d helped to sell, and while I felt sick to my stomach, something dark and ugly in me was satisfied that he’d died screaming.
There weren’t words strong enough for the kind of damage he’d been instrumental in inflicting on innocent kids.
I rewound to one section, though.
